


When you don't have to think about it

by SecondStarOnTheLeft



Series: Good Intentions 2020 [6]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:54:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27182755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft
Summary: Izzy isn't still thinking about Raphael. Nope. No way.Except he's still on her speed dial, when she needs him.
Series: Good Intentions 2020 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1978876
Kudos: 5
Collections: Good Intentions: Abandoned and Unfinished WIPs





	When you don't have to think about it

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Chloe x Halle's _Ungodly Hour_.
> 
> I had great plans! But alas.

Izzy’s only a little surprised when the alarm goes up.

Alec’s been gone for maybe two days, which  _ is  _ a little unusual, since he’s been made head of the Institute, but it’s not out of the question. Magnus loves romantic getaways, and since  _ he _ hasn’t called her to worry about having not seen Alec in a day or two, as he has in the past, well, she hasn’t been worried.

She’s had Max to think about, his training and making him keep studying, which he hates, and she’s had Clary crying on her shoulder every day over Simon and Jace, and Jace being a reticent, and Mom being… Mom.

Sebastian has been amazing, helping out with Max and getting more out of Jace than she has in months, and even managing Clary, sometimes. Having him manage her family has left Izzy with time to actually see to her day-to-day duties, in the lab and in the training rooms. She’s one of the most senior Shadowhunters in New York now, with everyone they’ve lost since Valentine’s return, and she has  _ real work  _ to do, stray demons to hunt and administrative work to keep on top of, and…

If she’s being honest, she thinks about Raphael, whenever she has a minute to spare. She thinks about  _ shit, being let down gently still hurts like a bitch,  _ and about  _ I hope he brought Rosa that tabasco sauce she wanted  _ and  _ did any of it feel real to him like it did to me  _ and  _ what if he meant it when he told Alec he cared for me  _ and sometimes, and this is what she feels most guilty about, she thinks  _ I wonder what he looks like under those beautiful suits. _

She doesn’t talk to anyone about Raphael, because, well, who can she talk to? Alec still hates Raphael on principle, Jace is wrapped up in his own thing, and Clary is totally locked down in her love triangle nonsense. Who else is there? She doesn’t have any friends here who would even try to understand - they’d judged her enough for sleeping with Melliorn, and she has no idea how to explain the depth of her feelings for Raphael without also explaining about the yin-fen - and she can hardly speak to her  _ mother.  _

Izzy loves her mother, but she’s also fully aware that Maryse Lightwood joined the Circle. She’s grown and improved since then, but there’s a distrust of Downworlders that goes right to her mother’s bones, and she’s just about coping with Alec dating Magnus. If Izzy went to her and said,  _ Hey Mom, I need your help - I’m super into the vampire who was helping me get high, and I really want to try and make things work with him, but he’s got this whole Catholic guilt thing going on and thinks he’s bad for me. What do I do to convince him he’s not? _

Because Raphael is  _ not  _ bad for her. Izzy learned her lesson with self-deception while she was taking yin-fen, and she’s not afraid to admit that she literally pushed her blood into Raphael’s mouth. Ashamed, sure, but not afraid. She forced an addiction on him as surely as Aldertree did on her, and she wishes she could explain that to Alec. Alec is so… So  _ good,  _ though, that it wouldn’t make sense to him, even if she tried.

Jace might understand, but Jace has enough on his plate between whatever mess is happening between him and Clary and his new identity as a  _ Herondale,  _ of all things. She can’t lean on him now, not when  _ he _ needs  _ her.  _

And Sebastian… Sebastian is always offering help. He’s always trying to get her to talk, to open up to him, and while she wants to sometimes, while she  _ did,  _ looking back… That was the withdrawals.  _ That _ was the addiction, the  _ weakness,  _ the need for someone to, to _ let  _ her be weak. Everyone else always expects her to be strong, and she is strong, she has made herself strong and-

She didn’t have to be strong, leaning against Raphael’s chest, letting him run his fingers through her hair, her nose tucked against the notch of his collarbones, when even the burn of longing for his venom in her veins didn’t  _ hurt,  _ not the way it did during withdrawal, not the way it did that day in the Jade Wolf, not the way it sometimes does when she’s tired and can just  _ imagine  _ how much of a lift a little yin-fen might give her.

_ I’m bad for you. _

“Bad my  _ ass,”  _ Izzy grumbles, turning the page in a report that’s gone unchecked for almost two months, since last she kept kind-of regular hours in the lab. 

It’s a comfort, to be back in her red leather swivel chair, with her white coat hanging over the back, with her hair tied up neatly out of the way, with her reading glasses and her favourite red pen, correcting everyone else’s mistakes. 

Isabelle is many things. One of those things is  _ really  _ good at her job.

The comfort rings a little hollow, though, because it feels like a false echo of the time before - a time when Jace was confident and sharp and maybe a little mean, but only when he had to be. When Alec was strict and only smiled with her and Jace and Max. When she had fun, and didn’t care, and was  _ happy.  _ Now she has worries and concerns and a niggling itch on the inside of her wrist, where she’d have a scar in the shape of Raphael’s teeth if it weren’t for her runes, and another over her right shoulder blade, where she feels branded by the gentle weight of Raphael’s hand, resting there while they curled together on his couch.

She’s sitting in her red leather chair, staring blankly at the inside of her bare wrist, when the alarm goes up, and she’s only a little surprised.

* * *

“I just got this from Alec’s phone,” Jace says, when Izzy walks into Alec’s office. Mom is there too, and Clary, but no one else. Clary and Jace keep turned away from one another very slightly, and Mom seems on edge, the way she always is lately. “It’s not from Alec.”

It’s a video, a short clip of Alec, tied to a chair.

“Have you called Magnus?”

“He’s on his way here,” Clary said. “I called Luke, too, to see if he heard anything.”

Izzy could offer to call Raphael, and he’d probably answer, too, but she can’t bring herself to do it - if they need him, Magnus will call him. She could probably call Melliorn, but cellphones aren’t really the Seelies’ thing, so she’ll have to go send word to him in some more old-fashioned way, if it comes to it.

Jace flicks to a new video, and in this one, someone slams a staff across Alec’s face.

“I’m going to kill them,” Izzy says, and Jace nods in agreement. From the tense set of his jaw, Izzy’s guessing that something is coming across his and Alec’s parabatai bond, and it’s not pretty. 


End file.
